I’m not in the habit of extensively revisiting strange maps already posted here, as there are so many more out there. But the map of the ‘US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs’ (in the previous post) elicited such a deluge of interesting replies (including several cool spin-off maps) that it merits a second look.

First, a word about its origin. The map was suggested to me by a reader of the blog – the reference can be found at the end of the previous post. Trying to trace back the ultimate original source dead-ends; two fortuitous mails have since shed more light on the origin.

It turns out the map used in post #131 is a ‘remake’ of the original one. That map was entitled ‘The United States of the world’ and appeared in the Toronto newspaper the Globe & Mail, on March 8, 2005. It was sent to me by Ann El Khoury over at peoplesgeography (type in ‘petrol prices’ in the search field at the top of her page and check out the revelatory map of global price differences).

Here is that original map:

The small print at the bottom credits the concept of the map to a political scientist at Brigham Young University. This is contested by Douglas Coupland, who first mailed me to claim credit for the map, and then again after he found the map in his archives to express that he was “amazed and appaled” by the Globe and Mail’s apparent rogue crediting.

Mr Coupland quite adamantly states that he conceived this map, and spent “a lot of time” on the phone with the Globe and Mail’s magazine editor in the process. I have no reason to doubt him, and am very happy to hereby give him due credit – also because he kindly promised to send me another map he conceived.

Until then, let’s have a look at some of the spin-offs this map has generated.

One remark that crops up about the map mentioned above is that it doesn’t compare US economic size with that of its nearest competitors (as they’re all too big to ‘fit’ into just one state’s economy). This alternate map (found here) does just that, comparing the economies of the next four largest GDP countries to multiple states. Thus:

• China’s GDP equals that of California, Oregon, Washington State and Nevada – oh, and Alaska and Hawaii
• The UK’s GDP compares to that of New York State, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and (apparently) Washington DC
• Good ol’ Deutschland’s GDP is as big as that of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.
• Japan gobbles up all the remaining states, being all of New England, the Midwest and the West (minus the ‘Chinese’ coastal states and Nevada)

As remarked in the original post, the GDP comparison map is slightly misleading, since it might compare a state with a small population with a populous country, thus giving a skewed idea of personal wealth in both entities. A more individual criterium of wealth (or at least of development) is life expectancy at birth.